Young Muslims and whites disagree on free speech
Young Muslims consider freedom of religion much more important than freedom of speech. The opposite is true of ‘native’ Dutch youngsters, according to a poll held by current affairs TV programme TweeVandaag.
Top-X, the programme’s youth website, questioned 4250 secondary schoolchildren. This showed that 89 percent of the Muslim pupils considered freedom of religion more important than the freedom of speech. Only 22 percent of the non-Muslim respondents agreed with this.
The students were also asked to give their opinion on whether a number of statements were allowed. The claim ‘the Netherlands is full’, for which far-right MP Hans Janmaat was convicted in the 1980s, is acceptable for 50 percent of the young Muslims and 73 percent of the non-Muslims.
It is all right to say ‘Islam is backward’ in the view of 8 percent of the Muslims and 36 percent of the non-Muslims. The statement ‘Muslims are goat shaggers’ is acceptable to 7 percent of the Muslims and 26 percent of the white children. Strikingly, the statement ‘Jews should be gassed’ is allowable in the view of 12 percent of the white children and 7 percent of the Muslims.
Source: NIS News, ANP, 26 April 2006
